But he cut in. It’s not about what I prefer. He looked up at her then for the first time tonight. It’s about how this looks. She was their mother. That space, it doesn’t get replaced.
Evelyn’s voice dropped. I never thought it did.
They stood there still, not in conflict, but in a delicate space between caution and pain.
She turned back toward the hallway, then paused. “They’re not asking me to be here,” she said without looking back.
“They’re asking someone to stand beside them just for a day.” He didn’t answer. The moment passed. The fridge hummed again.
She left the kitchen, and Jonathan stood alone, staring at the towel she’d left behind on the counter, folded neatly, one corner slightly frayed.
He didn’t sleep much that night. When he did, the dreams came back.
Margaret’s voice in pieces, a laugh cut off mid-sentence, the last time she touched his hand, right before they wheeled her away. He sat up in the dark. No lights, just the city outside.
Glass buildings glowing like they didn’t know what grief was.
He got up, walked the hallway like he always did when sleep wouldn’t hold.
Stopped outside the twins door. He heard them breathing, even soft, safe. Across the hall, a light was still on under the maid’s door. He thought about knocking, but he didn’t.
He just stood there, listening. And somewhere beneath the discomfort, beneath the walls he’d built around the space Margaret left behind, he felt something he hadn’t let himself feel in a long time. Gratitude.
Not loud, not proud, just real. He didn’t know what to do with it yet, but it was there like a crack in the concrete. Small but growing.
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